Page 81 of Devotion

“But it’s not even done yet!”

“I know.” He sighs and rubs his jaw. It makes a scratchy sound since he didn’t have time to shave this morning. “Shit.” After a shaky breath, he adds, “I don’t want to do this.”

I wrap my arm around his waist and squeeze him, rubbing my cheek against the back of his shoulder. “I know. But what choice do you have?”

“None. I have none.” Those words push him into action. He stiffens his spine and turns toward me. Gives me a quick kiss before he leaves the bathroom.

I follow him out as he gathers his notebook and a file of papers he organized last night and then strides out of the room.

Mornings with him used to be my favorite part of the entire day, but now they’ve turned into this.

When Gabriel returnsfrom the meeting two hours later, he won’t talk to me.

That’s answer enough.

He’s so tense and withdrawn that I leave him alone for a few hours. I can read the result of the meeting in his manner, so it’s not like I need an explanation.

The meeting went bad. The president and other administrators must not have been amenable to his plan to reinstitute indentured servitude with safeguards against abuses. He pores over his papers for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, striking out lines and scrawling notes and improvised charts into his notebook.

I knit since my mind won’t relax enough for me to read or draw. My fingers work automatically, adding row after row onto the blanket I’ve been making my grandfather for his birthday, but my eyes keep darting up to watch Gabriel.

The few things I’m capable of doing to help him, he’s been refusing to let me do. So all that’s left is to sit and worry about him.

He hasn’t eaten or drunk since right after his swim, so in the midafternoon I finally get up and pour water in a glass. I carry it to his desk and set it beside him.

When he blinks at it in confusion, I pick up his hand and wrap his fingers around the glass.

He lifts it. Takes a sip. Then takes several big swallows in a row like he just remembered how to drink.

“It was bad,” he says gruffly when he lowers the glass.

“I know.” I reach over to rub his shoulder, wishing he’d at least let me give him a massage.

“He won’t allow any genuine moderations. Just a few concessions to superficially soften things so people will think it’s not like before.” He stares down at the half-filled page of his notebook. “There were a couple of people in that meeting who should have been on my side. But they caved immediately.”

I swallow over a hard lump in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t lift his head, but he angles his eyes up toward my face. “I don’t know what to do, Jess. This is… It’s wrong. It would be bad enough if it was simply happening, but it’s happening through me. My pen. My brain. My—” His voice breaks.

A couple of tears stream out of my eyes as I lean over and wrap my arms around him from behind in a tight hug. I can’t speak. There’s nothing to say anyway.

“I don’t know what to do,” he finally says when he’s controlled the emotion that was shuddering through him.

“I don’t either.”

“I don’t want to die.”

I make a gurgling sound and squeeze him harder.

He raises a hand to grip one of my forearms in a silent, clingy gesture.

“Would he really kill you?” I finally ask. “I know it makes sense he would, but I’ve been thinking about it. Could he pull it off? There haven’t been any executions since President Vincent took over.”

“He would. Not openly. I’d die unexpectedly of a heart attack or something similar, just like Patterson.”

I gasp. “You mean?—”

He turns his head to give me a look.

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